There's an autumnal hue about the sky today.
Last night i noticed it was darkening by 8pm and for three or four nights now the gulls have been gathering over the river.

It's a great time - such a relief that the weather is improving now too.
I can breathe again. There is wind and yesterday some light rain fell.

I love the phenomena of Gull Roosts.
The only spectacle in the birding world that beats it are the waders flocking on The Wash in their millions.
The roost at Weston Shore here gets up to 75,000 birds at its peak, and its a delight living beside the Itchen at this time of year especially. Over the next few weeks the numbers will steadily increase and by October, there'll be lines of hundreds passing the window everynight. The lost has been great for watching this, especially because the sun sets on the other side of the house so the birds are perfectly lit as they go by.

In the office on my own I can breathe easy too. Catching up with accounts first.
Just had an inspiring phone call from someone at NF Living, a holiday cottage business who thinks the Room Folders are 'simply wonderful'! She was very impressed with the quality and professionalism of the thing, and complimented us on that and the 'eyecatching and colourful' design work.
Feedback like that makes it all worthwhile - hope Ian got on well delivering the last 400 yesterday.
Wonder why i havent heard from him today??

LJ can be so stupid sometimes. This World Atlas project I am "Project managing" has ground more or less to a halt.
The Indian studio had a sample page to do delivered on 5th July (approx 20 hrs) which they took AGES to do and finally delivered here on 28th. It was quite good tho, so I felt encouraged and duly sent off the next ten pages. Nothing beck yet.
Turns out they are now discussing 'commercials' with LJ and haven't agreed a) to an hourly rate b) to commit that much time to the job and c) insist each page will take 30-40 hours.

Surely surely surely this should all have been agreed before we signed any contracts?? The client is expecting a regular supply of finished proofs!
What LJ have done of course is offered the client the job for a ridiculously low price and been awarded the contract on the strength of my three samples that I did around Easter time.
Now they can't find suppliers to meet those prices. It's all the wrong way round